Time to Ditch the Diet Drinks?

In the past, I may have led you to believe that my vices include butter, peanut butter, burritos/tacos, potatoes, and foods that ends with –acamole. While I do happily dabble in all of the above, I have tried to downgrade my evil ingestions from extreme to moderate.Fact is, my one true dietary vice for many, many years hasn’t been any of those belt-busters. It’s Diet Coke.In the morning. At work. With meals. In between meals. After a run. In my dreams. Bottles. Cans. Fountain.Over the past few years, I’ve given it up several times. Once, I lasted a couple months, and just recently, I decided to go on the weekend-only plan. But eventually, I upgraded Friday to a weekend day, which meant that technically, Thursday night was too, and it took no time at all before I was back to my same-old by-the-gallon habit.I always had the same justification: It was zero calories, and especially during times when I was really trying to curb what I ate, Diet Coke acted as my reward. Better to have DC than DQ, right?Oh, I’ve tried to ignore the research rumblings: Calories or no calories, diet soda is just as bad for you if you’re trying to lose weight. Hormonal tricks that the chemicals play just make your body want to eat more.I covered my ears, and opened my mouth. It’s zero freaking calories!Now, you’ve surely seen, the rumblings are louder and louder: Diet soda drinkers have larger waists than non-drinkers. That doesn’t necessarily mean that diet soda causes weight gain, as @fitchicnycexplains on MensHealth.com. She offers several possible explanations for the link, including the fact that diet-drink users simply tend to eat more, too (the sweet tooth argument, if you will).One of the biggest DC drinkers I know is also one of the healthiest people I know: Michael Roizen, the chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic, does everything by the book. But for 40-some years, his only dietary vice was having lots of diet drinks (Diet Dr. Pepper was his fave). Last year, he stopped cold turkey, and now he drinks only black coffee and water. While there’s no clear link between weight and diet drinks, there’s also no need to infuse your body with a cocktail of chemicals.So I’ve decided to try it again: For the past week, I’ve replaced my go-to beverage with water with fruit floating in it. (Limes: Yes. Grapes: Kinda weird.)I haven’t missed my syrupy savior all that much yet (though I did really want a 64-ounce fountain DC after an especially sloppy 3-miler the other day). And I’m not ready to make any declarations (No more FOREVER!). All I’m going to do is try this again. Sacrifice my diet drinks (and artificial sweeteners) and see what happens. But I do have questions.Will it make me smaller? Eat more? Eat less? Run faster? Run better? If I cave, is that just a symbol of not having the fortitude to push through the pain? Is this the start of something really productive? Or is it just me trying to find something other than myself to blame? Can giving up a zero-calorie habit make any difference whatsoever?I have no idea. But what I do know is that in the meantime, I’m going to be cutting up an awful lot of limes.…Ted Spiker wrote this while sipping on chocolate raspberry coffee from 7-Eleven. He also wishes he didn’t write “cold turkey,” because he now wants some gravy. You can follow him on Twitter at @ProfSpiker.

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